Selflessness – Reliance on God

Trust in Divine Wisdom

Source: H.M. Balyuzi, ‘Abdu’l-Baha

‘Abdu’l-Baha at that early age was a victim of consumption (Tuberculosis). Sixty years later, when speaking of the illness which was keeping Him in the French capital for a period longer than expected, He brought to mind those years of His childhood:

“I have been traveling for two years and a half. Nowhere was I ill except here. Because of that I had to stay a long time. Were it not for this illness I would not have stayed in Paris more than a month. There is a reason for this…. It has been so from the early years of my life. The wisdom of whatever has happened to me has become apparent later. While I was a child in Tihran, seven years of age, I contracted tuberculosis. There was no hope of recovery. Afterwards the wisdom of and the reason for this became evident. Were it not for that illness I would have been in Mazindaran [at an ancestral family home].  But because of it I remained in Tihran and was there when the Blessed Perfection was imprisoned. Thus I travelled ‘Iraq in His company. And when the time came, although physicians had despaired of my recovery, I was suddenly cured. It happened in spite of the fact that all had said a cure was impossible.”